Dudes Look Like Ladies
by Ace of Hearts
Summary: A madman threatens to bomb the Miss Teen USA Pageant, forcing the X-Men and Brotherhood to work together on a covert mission to stop him...but when a little thing called feminism sweeps in, guess who're the ones donning the evening gowns and tiaras?


**Malibu, California**

Once upon a time (or a few days ago), in a land far, far away (or in California, if you happen to live on the East Coast), three high school students decided to take a well-deserved break from studying for the SAT's, and had driven all the way to the beach for some wholesome fun in the sun. They were all gorgeous, if you go for the stereotypical teen flick type of looks--the blonde bombshell, Alison Blair, was decked out in an electric-green bikini that was anything but modest, the token purple-haired "punk princess," Betsy Braddock, was lounging around in a somewhat less eye-popping dark blue one-piece...and the last girl was some normal human chick that nobody cares about 'cause she doesn't have any nifty mutant powers, so we'll just call her Random Baywatch Extra No. 1.   
"...And then I had to break up with him," Alison was chattering a mile a minute, her green-tinted fashion shades slipping down to her nose as she went on, "Which, in retrospect (whoa, major SAT word!), was kind of stupid on my part, since there goes my guitar player!"   
"Mmm hmm," Betsy nodded sleepily, and despite the fact that she hasn't spoken a single word so far, we can still tell that her "Mmm hmm" has a British accent, because God forbid people forget that she's from the U.K.! 

Random Baywatch Extra No. 1 opened her pink lipsticked mouth and began to speak, but thankfully before she could shrill out some valley girl nonsense, a guy in his early twenties with blonde-highlighted light brown hair and a million watt grin jogged over to the three girls and began his sales pitch.   
"Wassup to all my loyal fangirls out there," the obnoxious guy bubbled into the lens of a camera his sidekick was toting. "Looks like I've found three righteous babes right here to represent the Golden State in our annual Miss Teen USA Beauty Pageant...but don't worry, you all are still all numero Bono in my heart!" He then turned to the three "righteous babes," who were now staring incredulously at him, before Alison spoke up with mild curiosity, "Who are you?"   
"And who're you calling "babes," you lowly American?" Betsy snapped coldly, taking particular offense at being likened to some talking pink pig.   
"I am Bryan Yeastbrest!" the blonde guy puffed with obvious pride, poking out his none-too-impressive chest and striking an automatic pose, while the cameraman zoomed in on a close-up of His Royal Machoness. Dead silence followed his melodramatic introduction, as Alison, Betsy, and Random Chick continued to gawk cluelessly at him. Under their scornful scrutiny, the guy's Hollywood stance began to waver, and he hastened to add somewhat uneasily, "You know, the totally tripping host of _All-American Hotties: The Search For The Next Top Hooter Girl?" _Crickets chirped (although how the hell they found their way to the beach is still one of the biggest mysteries to this day, along with the likes of the Loch Ness Monster and Stonehenge), as Alison, Betsy, and Random Baywatch Extra No. 1 stared back with blank, uncomprehending looks on their faces.   
"I also had a recurring role on _ER_ as Paramedic No. 20?" Bryan prodded, to no avail. Finally, in a burst of frustration, he sniped, "And I played the cute guy from the café in the latest Kate Hudson movie!"   
"Oh!" the three girls chorused together, lights of recognition finally dawning in their eyes.   
_"Yes, _oh!" Bryan huffed insultedly, before clearing his throat and diving back into his sales pitch. "Anyway, I'm representing Babelline, the cosmetics corporation that's sponsoring the Miss Teen USA Beauty Pageant, and right now we're on a search for Miss Teen California." As Alison and Random Chick let out squeals of excitement and Betsy frowned and wondered what this had to do with her, a decisively non-California native, Bryan flashed his trademark million watt grin that made him look constipated, and singsonged, "So, how'd you three hotties like to try out?" 

**Two Hours Later...**

"...And our top three finalists for the Miss Teen California crown are," the silver-haired announcer bellowed out. "Third place: Jasmine Delacroix, Miss Teen Beverly Hills!" A beautiful, perfectly-tanned redhead strutted her way onto the podium.   
"Second place: Layla Ling, Miss Teen Santa Cruz!" A stunning Chinese girl with whip-straight raven hair paraded to her place next to Miss Teen Beverly Hills.   
"And finally, Alison Blair, Miss Teen Malibu, is our lucky first-place winner and will be going on to represent our very own Golden State at the Miss Teen USA competition next month!" the announcer finished in a dramatic boom, as an elated Alison gave the standard _Oh-my-gosh-I-can't-believe-I-won!_ squeals and gestures, before happily dancing her way to the podium to accept her rose bouquet and imitation diamond tiara.   
"This is the happiest day of my life!" she cried emotionally, as flashbulbs went off in the audience. "I just want to say--" 

**_*BOOM!!!*_**   
Alison never got to lavish the crowds with a stereotypically corny acceptance speech, when the tiara exploded right in her face just as the previous year's Miss Teen California was handing it to Alison. As the smoke started clearing up and panicked cries erupted everywhere, a little note could be seen fluttering dramatically onto the sand. A silhouetted figure bearing a remarkable resemblance to Logan bent down to pick it up, grunting gruffly to himself as he read the message. WATCH OUT FOR ME AT THE MISS TEEN USA PAGEANT, were glued boldly onto the paper from magazine letter cutouts. I'LL STOP YOU MUTANTS FROM TAKING OVER BEAUTY CONTESTS AROUND THE WORLD! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!! 

* * *

**Three Days After That...**

Pietro Maximoff zipped around the back seat of the moving Jeep. He drummed his fingers impatiently against his knees. He sighed forlornly, blowing the air out of a corner of his mouth. He stepped all over his twin sister Wanda as he leaned over to the front and started fiddling around with the radio. After impatiently going through some Evanescence, Christina Aguilera, Bruce Springsteen, Eminem, and Hilary Duff (huh?!) at lightning speed, he finally bored of the game and zipped to the back seat again. Finally, he began to speak.   
"Are we there yet?" Pietro whined obnoxiously, pouting and kicking his legs around like a spoiled eight-year-old child on a long road trip.   
"No," Lance Alvers, the token leader of the Brotherhood, snapped irritably from the front seat, swerving to avoid a blue Nissan going the wrong direction on a one-way street.   
"Are we there yet?" Pietro piped up not even five minutes after that, when admiring how gorgeous his perfect platinum hair looked became too monotonous for him.   
"No," Lance gritted out, as he concentrated on avoiding a series of potholes before hitting one so large that he would have rocketed right up and out of his Jeep had he not been wearing a seat belt (for once in his life!). Five minutes afterwards, that familiar voice inevitably began to whine again.   
"Are we there--" Pietro started to gripe, when a flash of bright blue light followed by a sudden mad shriek cut into his chant. Lance adjusted his rearview mirror to see what had happened, and caught a glimpse of the black-and-burgundy-clad Wanda Maximoff sitting calmly beside the now incapacitated and curiously smoking body of her twin brother.   
"Thanks a million, Wanda," he breathed gratefully, just as he arrived at their intended destination and cut the engine. 

The three Brotherhood members exited the Jeep, Lance grudgingly dragging Pietro with him as a pair of heavy wrought-iron gates automatically opened, leading them to the stately mansion inside. A distinguished-looking African-American woman with long, snowy white hair was waiting for them by the entrance, throwing open the glass front doors of the mansion and for once wearing a grateful look as the familiar faces of the three teens emerged from the shadows.   
"Thank you for coming on such short notice," Ororo Monroe, a.k.a. the mutant weather witch known as Storm, spoke up gratefully as she led Lance, Wanda, and the slowly reawakening Pietro inside. "The Professor's waiting for you in the library with the core members of the X-Men team." 

By the time Pietro finally came to, he discovered that somebody had carelessly and with complete disregard to his gorgeous silver-gilt hair flung him onto an overstuffed velvet sofa beside some figure his still slightly blurred vision was only beginning to bring into focus.   
"Are you all right?" a vaguely familiar voice spoke up, its owner leaning down to examine his eyes and make sure he hadn't gotten a concussion. Pietro looked, and found himself staring into a furry, elfin blue monstrosity of a face that wrenched a high-pitched scream from the silver-haired speedster and sent him shooting up from his chair and zipping away for safety...only to careen right into Logan and bounce off rather pathetically from his chest with a grunt of, "Oof!"   
"Idiot," Wanda's voice could be heard sneering in exasperation, and as Pietro tried to regain his composure and an offended Kurt Wagner huffed and swore up and down that he wasn't _that_ bad-looking, Lance turned to Xavier and asked incredulously, "So basically, you're saying we should team up and take out this anti-mutant freak who's blowing up _beauty pageants?"_ Xavier nodded calmly in response.   
"That's right," he spoke in a grave voice. "The police aren't putting as much effort into their manhunt for this bomber as they ought to, for many of them are unfortunately prejudiced against mutants and see these acts of terrorism as a good riddance, which means we'll unfortunately have to send our own team undercover to the Miss Teen USA Beauty Pageant which is to take place next month, and try to put a stop to this." 

"Fine by me," Pietro immediately piped up, before Lance could even get a word out, and as the taller Brotherhood boy turned to glare irritably at his fair-haired teammate, Pietro quickly pulled Lance aside and whispered into his ear, "Trust me, Alvers, this is a win-win situation for us: the chicks will be the ones doing the actual work since they'll have to go undercover at the pageant, which leaves us with all the free time in the world, at some glitzy location and surrounded by fifty gorgeous girls--well, fortysomething gorgeous girls, depending on how many X-bimbos the Chrome Dome's planning to send!" Lance began to smirk as comprehension dawned into his eyes, before the two teens exchanged gleeful low fives and grinned devilishly in anticipation. Straightening up, Lance turned to Xavier and offered charitably, "All right, Baldy--erm, I mean, Your Honor--we're in!" 

Scott and Kurt's eyebrows flew up in shock at the Brotherhood's generosity, the two boys exchanging suspicious looks before Scott came forward and asked, "You _do_ know what you're getting yourselves into, right?" Lance and Pietro nodded, trying to look as angelic as possible even while their gleeful smirks grew mile-wide, before Kurt sighed and asked, "So it's settled, zen. Vhich one of you is going to be ze "California girl," and vhich one of you is going to be ze "blonde bombshell?" Lance and Pietro's eyes flew wide open, before the latter sputtered in disbelief, "Wh-what are you talking about?"   
"Didn't we tell you?" Scott asked, unable to keep a note of triumph from creeping into his voice even though he would be sadly sharing in their miserable fate._ "We're_ the ones who'll be going undercover as the beauty pageant contestants!"   
"Ja, ze girls--Jean, Keety, and Rogue--absolutely refused to participate in ze competition, on account of zeir feminist ideals. Somesing about how degrading it is to today's young woman to be--and I quote--"parading around in skimpy bikinis and ridiculously overpriced evening gowns, vhile a panel of hormonal losers judge zem solely on zeir bodies like zey vere pieces of meat on display!" Kurt further explained.   
"Yeah, and I have a feeling that for once Wanda would agree with them, wouldn't you, Wanda?" Here Scott turned expectantly to the only female member of the Brotherhood, who confirmed Pietro and Lance's fears by curtly nodding her head.   
"So you see," Kurt finished morosely, "ve have no choice but to cross-dress and enter into ze beauty contest ourselves!" 

_*Thud!* *Thud!*_   
Scott and Kurt reluctantly reached forward to catch the bodies of the flabbergasted Lance and Pietro as they fainted. Scott lucked out and was able to easily support the unconscious Pietro, while Kurt got stuck with Lance and promptly collapsed under the weight of the taller, more muscular boy. 


End file.
